Shallow focus is a photographic and cinematographic technique incorporating a small depth of field. In shallow focus, one plane of the scene is in focus while the rest is out of focus. Shallow focus is typically used to emphasize one part of the image over another.[1] Photographers sometimes refer to the aesthetic quality of the unfocused area(s) as bokeh.[2]
The opposite of shallow focus is deep focus, in which the entire image is in focus.